Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Think you've heard great pianos? Listen to this

Make sure you use headphones or really good speakers, and be prepared to catch your jaw before it hits the floor!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ct3MMyWjRhc

Nice sound, beautiful bass. WOuld be nice to hear this for real instead of through my (very good) headphones.

It has 3 or even 4 strings for each key

There is some interesting history to it as well

http://www.zeit.de/2010/28/Sommertipp-Piano-Salon-Christophori

http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/kultur/klassik/Hitlers-Superfluegel/story/18546349

The germans apparently were planning to use this in a concert hall with a 300m high dome accomodating 180000 spectators. Now THAT is jaw dropping

Here is another link about the mechanics

http://www.pianoteknik.tv/?p=5793

Yes, thanks for that. I watched those same restringing videos on Youtube......fascinating. I love how they lock down the tuning pins from the underside of the wrest plank, and how the keyboard and hammers are configured.

What does "Hitlers Superfluegel" mean?

http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/kultur/klassik/Hitlers-Superfluegel/story/18546349
[Googlish]
Hitler's super wing
Updated on 14/07/2010
The "Super Quattro chord wing" should meet the halls Germania with a "sound like thunder." Now the heaviest wings of the world is back in action.

On the Steinway fade: The Quattro Chord Super wings.
The sound of the Super Wing

As the "World Capital Germania" wanted to reinvent the Nazis in Berlin - had a more than 300-meter-high central dome, which offered room for 180,000 people. The eagle statue on the dome was originally clasping a swastika, but Hitler put the bird out of hand on a globe.

Not completely megalomaniac, but still oversized, was another project of the Nazis: A super wing, which should refer to the ranks of the American Steinways. Because Germany lost the war, not for Kam big duel pianos. However, unlike Germania saw the "Super Quattro Chord wing" at least the light of day.

700 kilos

It was built in 1943 by the Saxon August Förster piano manufacturer. Super wings made of wood and steel and has four per key instead of the usual three strings on. With 700 pounds, it is the heaviest piano that has been ever made. It measures three meters and has, according to "time" a sound "like thunder", which should satisfy the vast halls Germania well. By comparison, the Steinway S-155, built in 1936, weighed 252 kilos and measured 155 centimeters.

Now the Super Quattro Chord wing will be played again. However, not megalomaniacal in concert halls but in the workshop of piano restorer Christoph Schreiber where the Berlin small, fine chamber music concerts throughout the year. About the one with the Slovakian Daniela Hlinkova pianist, playing on the wing Nazi works of Jewish composers Gideon Klein, who was executed in a concentration camp Fürstengrube.

I start a thread about the sound of an incredible piano and all you comment about is its name?

This article contains another recording:
http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/kultur/klassik/Hitlers-Superfluegel/story/18546349

It's an interesting name, but I don't know what it means. Can't I inquire about it?

The tuning system on it is interesting, but I think the piano sounds thin and glassy. Not a fan. Sorry.

WOW!

Have you room for yet ANOTHER piano?

;-)

No need to apologize to me, but, I've got to tell you, "thin and glassy" are probably the LAST two adjectives I'd use to describe that piano. Oh well, "vive le difference!"

Heh, heh. We moved to an even bigger house, lilylady, so the answer is a definitive YES!!

Love those deep bass notes at about the 1:30-1:45 mark.

Amen to that Monica. I also find the harmonics so incredibly rich that it sounds like two pianos in harmony with each other.

Well if you could only make your Mason Hamlin AA sound as good (though I suspect it does sound good).

Rich

My Mason AA would be a great starting point, but then I'd have to add about three more feet and a BUNCH more strings to get it to this level

Here are soundfiles of my AA to compare:

https://www.box.com/shared/static/9qucajn6ku.mp3

https://www.box.com/shared/static/2089zlssxx.mp3

Actually quite a nice tone on the Mason AA. Very sweet treble with that wonderful Mason bass.

Rich

Some of us are waiting for the software version . . . .

It sounds awfully tubby.